There are several reasons to arrive early at Union Station for your 4 p.m. train to the Coachella Valley.

The first – and most important – is the Amtrak Sunset Limited departs exactly on time, (even if it doesn't always arrive on time.)

Or at least this was certainly the case last Friday afternoon when the enormous double-decker train pulled out of Track 14 at the Los Angeles station at exactly 4 p.m. for what would be a 1,995-mile, two-day journey to New Orleans.

The other reason to arrive at Union Station early is simply to take in the evolving grandeur of this soaring rail terminal, “the last great railway station built in the United States,” said Kenneth Pratt, director of Union Station. “And will probably remain that way.”

Finished in 1939 the 170,000-square-foot main terminal was a monument to both transportation and a growing Los Angeles. On a recent tour with Coachella Valley elected and tourism officials, Pratt pointed out 3,000-pound chandeliers, tile and marble floors and brass fixtures, all original to the building.

“It’s like an automobile up there,” Pratt mused as everyone craned their necks to admire the 10-foot wide brass chandeliers some two stories up.

Union Station, which is owned by Metro, the Los Angeles mass-transit system, has undergone some $22 million in restorations since Metro took over the property, in 2011, with another $20 million to be invested in the next three years.

So if you haven’t passed through Union Station in a couple of years, it’s worth a visit to see the newly cleaned brass or improved food and beverage options like the Traxx restaurant.

“People didn’t know there was brass,” Pratt said, pointing to the framework holding the massive windows. “And as we uncovered all of that, it was like magic. Literally, like magic.”

When it was completed in 1939, 33 trains arrived and departed Union Station daily, as some 7,000 passengers moved through the terminal. As the automobile grew in popularity and the great post World War II highway construction boom unfolded across southern California and the country, passenger rail service seemed to evaporate. By 1967 only eight passenger service trains served Union Station, Pratt said.

“And only a smattering of people,” he added.

“You could have had gun-fight in here and nobody would have known it,” said Pratt. “It was that vacant.”

Today, 880 trains serve Union Station, which includes Amtrak, along with Metro trains and subways. Also, some 1,500 buses serve the station. Because of all of this activity, roughly 75,000 people pass through the station every day, officials say.

Metro officials aim to make Union Station even more of a destination. Downtown L.A. restaurateurs Cedd Moses and Eric Needleman of Spirited Group, which opened Cole’s, Seven Grand and Casey’s Irish Pub, plan to renovate the former Harvey House restaurant transforming it into a brew pub. While Café Crepe, a restaurant line out Vancouver and Toronto, will open a fast-casual dining space to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner near the existing Traxx.

Other spaces will be devoted to retail and expanded areas to accommodate the growing number of passengers served by the station.

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Members of the Coachella Valley tourism community gather in the dining car of Amtrak's Sunset Limited on Friday, Feb. 5, 2016 for a trip from Los Angeles to Palm Springs.(Photo: Skip Descant/ The Desert Sun)

Daily passenger rail service at sensible hours into the Coachella Valley has long been on the transportation wish list among tourism and economic development officials. Temporary schedule changes for the Sunset Limited have moved up by six hours, which means the train from Los Angeles leaves at 4 p.m. and arrives at the Palm Springs rail platform at 6:30 p.m., ideal for weekend tourists looking to avoid L.A. Friday afternoon rush hour congestion.

The 4 p.m. departure from Union Station is temporary until about March 13 and due to track maintenance, according to Amtrak.

Returning to the city on Sunday is a trickier operation, because the Sunday westbound train arrives in Palm Springs some time between 2 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. Or, you could take the Monday train, which also arrives in the very early hours of the morning. A better option may be to take one of the Amtrak thruway buses, which depart twice a day from several locations in the Coachella Valley. The buses travel to Fullerton, where passengers pick up the Amtrak Surfliner into Los Angeles.

“We’re going to probably shift back, but we’re going to also look at the marketing study,” Jay Fountain, director of long distance routes at Amtrak, told Coachella Valley officials on Friday as the train prepared to depart Los Angeles, hinting at the possibility that the schedule change could become permanent.

“Rail is very important, and we all need to pull together,” Tim Ellis, chair of the Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau, told the group as they departed aboard an Amtrak bus last Friday morning from Palm Springs en route to Los Angeles. “We all know that the I-10 is not going to get any wider, probably not in our lifetime, and it’s going to get more and more crowed.”